lazybastard

Let me see if I'm getting this right. So only a fraction of those 2000 sorties per day were conducted with the aim of grounding the Iraqi Air Force? The rest were against ground troops, supply lines, SEAD, etc?

What to make of this?
CHINA HAS DEPLOYED 980 MISSILES AGAINST TAIWAN

Trying to find a copy of what Bernard Cole actually said.

Officer of Engineers

You don't kill an airbase by filling its runways with craters. You kill an airbase by killing the engineers who are filling those craters and the Allies did just that. They went back to kill those engineers a minimum of four times before the ground war began.

__________________
Chimo

gunnut

Let's just say China disables Taiwan's airforce. Then what? What do you propose they do next? Seaborne invasion? Air drops? How many men can China land on the shore of Taiwan? How will they be resupplied? Reinforced? Evacuate the casualties?

Landing a few thousand men is one thing, keeping them combat capable and effective throughout the campaign is quite another.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

lazybastard

And all the airlift and sealift capabilities in the world won't do the PLA any good unless they have air superiority over the straights. So what's your point?

Officer of Engineers

The PLA does not believe in air superiority. They want air denial.

gunnut

What sealift capability?

Officer of Engineers

I've been following the situation for over 10 years and I find the 980 missiles to be kinda light. I was expecting 1200 missiles by now 5 years ago. Still, my view is that these are tactical systems, not strategic. In that, I do not expect the PLA to use them on airfields. I expect them to be directed in by a FOO.

Let me explain. I've been observing for over a few years now that the PLA has pioneered the usage of ballastic missile salvos in volleys of 3-5 missiles per volley. Now depending on the target, that's a total of 200-400 sorties. That is way too few of numbers for a concentrated attack to take out the RoCAF ... unless they have real time intel of where their targets are ... meaning a FOO.

lazybastard

What sealift they have isn't enough for a successful landing yet, that doesn't mean they are not buying more as fast as the budget allow

Is that really feasible? What's the flight time for one of these things to cross the straight + average response time?

Officer of Engineers

30 minutes from a call from the FOO to impact.

Archer

Special forces? Spies in Taiwan?

__________________
Karmani Vyapurutham Dhanuhu

My bow is stretched for its task

Officer of Engineers

Have to be SF. The batteries are owned by the 2nd Artillery Force. Spies don't have the authority nor do they speak the same language.

zraver

OoE, do the Chinese missiles (2RF)have that good of a CEP? Seems to me cruise missiles offe a beter strike capability, Taiwan won't see them coming and so can be used for airfeild denial and to hit radar appatures, phone exchanges, then the ballistics hit C4Si infomation systems and other targets in pursuit of the Chicoms goals.

Officer of Engineers

The M9/M11 missiles are advertised to have less than 100 metres CEP. I think there is alot of internal PLA politics involved as to why they went with ballastic missiles rather than cruise missiles (though they are slowly acquiring those but nowhere near the speed of their BM batteries).

Originally, the 2nd Artillery Force (2AF) was the nuclear strike arm of the PLA. Only problem is that they don't own the nukes. The nukes belong to the Central Military Commission and are stored at a CMC location away from their delivery vehicles and under CMC guard.

I know the 2AF has been so frustrated, even during exercise, in trying to get some sort of nuclear release mechanism in place that they went the conventional explosive route but still required to maintain the nuclear option because of their original mandate.

xrough

We are talking about a thousand missile pointed on Taiwan, so it means a clear victory for China if ever they use force against Taiwan and if ever no US intervention?

__________________

Officer of Engineers

I can't see it. It the Taiwanese decides to put up a fight, they will win.